Jul 6 Part 2 of THE CLOTH DIAPER series

When I thought about cloth diapering our first child, I developed a list of questions that I thought I needed to answer in order to get started.

1. How much do you want to spend?2. How much time do you want to spend each day or every few days?3. How many do you need?4. When will you start diapering?5. How long do you plan to diaper?6. Will you exclusively cloth? If not, what will you use as a backup diaper?7. What accessories will you need?8. Will everyone staying with baby be able to do it? If not, what options will they have?

Here is how I answered:1. How much do you want to spend?Since 2 years of diapering with disposables can cost around $2000 ($20 a box for 104 weeks) – anything less than that is good, right? Ideally, I’d like to spend between $500-$700 upfront. Less is always a bonus. Most manufacturers recommend 24 diapers – that usually costs $250-$500 depending on the type of diaper. Add in accessories for another $100-$200 and you’re all set. I set aside extra money for disposables to be used on the go and for babysitters: about $50 every few months since we’ll exclusively cloth diaper at home.2. How much time do you want to spend each day or every few days? I can spend about an hour every other day on laundering and prepping diapers. Diapers usually need to be rinsed, washed and hung to dry. Once baby eats solids, a pre-rinsing may need to take place over the toilet and with a diaper sprayer.3. How many do you need?I want to wash every other day. Estimating that I’ll need about 8-10 diapers a day – I’ll need between 16-20 diapers minimum. To be smart and have enough if I need to skip a day of washing or I need to travel – I’d get double that amount.4. When will you start diapering? Around the 2nd month. I don’t want to wash anything the first few weeks – I just want to spend time with baby.5. How long do you plan to diaper? Until baby is potty trained. So I’d prefer diapers that adjust from 8-35lbs.6. Will you exclusively cloth? If not, what will you use as a backup diaper? I plan to cloth as much as possible, but I always like a backup, my backups have backups. I’ll use chlorine free disposable because they are very low on chemicals and biodegradable.7. What accessories will you need? I’ll need a pail, laundry bag, wet bag for outside of the home, cloth wipes and a wipe warmer for home, hemp inserts for overnight, flannel liners for overnight and to use with diaper creams that aren’t cloth diaper safe, biodegradeble liners for solid poop later on, wool soakers to go over prefolds and fitteds and a cloth diaper safe diaper cream like coconut oil.8. Will everyone staying with baby be able to do it? If not, what options will they have? Cloth diapering is pretty easy (especially the Velcro diapers) once people get a crash course. If I don’t have time to initiate someone into the world of cloth – I have plenty of non-chlorine disposable diapers on deck and in my diaper bag for them to use.

Once I had answers to each of these questions… I set off to research all of my options. Google, YouTube, mothering.com, babycenter and a few websites that sell cloth diapers were my first step to find what I was looking for. I also ventured off to some brick and mortar stores in my area to check out their stock, ask questions and see if they offered classes for me and the hubs to learn more about cloth diapering.